This inaugural collection of fiction brings together authors across the rich and varied African diaspora experience. Organized into short stories, novel excerpts, and young adult fiction, the collection offers a range of styles, textures, and settings. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies story is set in Nigeria, where American gangster-rap culture is permeating and guns and tortured loyalties became common. The U.S. and the Caribbean are the settings for Tiphanie Yaniques story of intergenerational and mixed-race tensions between two families. The collection includes an excerpt from Mat Johnsons historical novel set in eighteenth-century New York and an excerpt from Junot D-azs novelset in a contemporary urban ghetto. Also included are works by young adult authors Jacqueline Woodson and Walter Dean Myers. Not meant to be a definitive quasi-Norton edition, this engaging collection still shows the incredible range of talent and focus of fiction written by African Americans.

Pita delicious / ZZ Packer Albino crow / Chris Abani Orb weaver / Emily Raboteau The saving work / Tiphanie Yanique Dance for me / Amina Gautier Cell one / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie In the blink of God's eye / Edward P. Jones This kind of red / Helen Elaine Lee

Novel excerpts: Dark reflections/ Samuel R. Delany The great Negro plot / Mat Johnson The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao / Junot Díaz Man gone down / Michael Thomas Young adult fiction: Excerpt from Feathers / Jacqueline Woodson Excerpt from Harlem summer / Walter Dean Myers Excerpt from Elijah of Buxton / Christopher Paul Curtis Excerpt from Up for it: a tale of the underground / L.F. Haines.